Ghodbunder Road

(Mira Bhayandar to Thane)

All through the way, we keep speaking,
raising the stakes, little by little,
every night creates possibilities, which
the morning breaks, little by little.

What will remain of this night, years from
now, is only an abstract wish,
his head on my arms, his hair in my fingers
- desire slakes, little by little.

Mario had told me the Portugese traded
Arabian horses here at the creek,
'Ghod' 'Bunder' - the port of the horses -
how history wakes, little by little.

On the radio, as Ananyaa sang, she pestled
the moon, dissolved the stars,
take heed, Akhil, she sings of our lives, it
gives and it takes, little by little.

Two memories, Delhi

I

Laxmi Nagar, Delhi
1997

I must have been twelve
when a grand-uncle was discovered
during a vacation in Delhi,

you don't know him? we'd told you, he's

nani's eldest brother,
(also from Sargodha, Pakistan)
I'd never met a grand-uncle.

In his Jamuna-paar house, he looked so frail
in his drawing-room that my twelve-year-oldness
was afraid to go near him.

He could not see. And, for me, then, his could-not-seeness
had sat in the middle of the room
but no one would mention it.

He spoke to us and I followed his closed eyelids
that kept egg-whites beneath them.

I tried to measure how much 
he could see of the snacks on the table,
of my fingers, of all of us talking,
of his own speaking-about-us-without-knowing-us,
as if of course I know you, you're my sister's grand...

After a while,
he asked Pinki (my mother's name
for those who knew her longer than I)
to let him see us.

We were made to get up and
stand in front of him.

I walked slowly, my bones
shaped like awkwardness.

He touched my face with his fingers,
frailness, moved them lightly over my nose,
my eyes (should I keep them closed? or open?)
and said, he's "nice-looking" in English,
and then let me go.

I bundled back
to my edge of the sofa,
to the edge of my mother,
near her, asking her to keep me
from her people, those who knew her
longer than I, grand-uncles whose egg-whites
roamed on walls and who saw people through fingers.

II

Jangpura Extension, Delhi
2016

Rohit, it has been about six years
since you left, and of-course-this-is-very-little-time,
especially-in-this-day-and-age,
but I thank my stars that sometimes I find it
difficult to remember
your face
fully.

It is surprising how much six years
without a facebook-friendship can do,
how they can blur the edges of cheek-bones,
make the nose go was-it-like-this?
and eyes, were-they-dark-brown-or-black?

Around the third year,
when this slow forgetting had started,
I found these little slipping-away's of details
to be a form of betrayal, like the final warrant of
now-nothing-can-start-again, like the final final, like
even his face now...

but when your going sunk in through the years,
this slipperiness of memory felt kinder,
this inability to remember no longer argued with me,
it sat on my lap and let me stroke
its chin, and loved me back,
if even his face can go, then surely...

but, sometimes, near the hours
that are no-longer-night an' not-yet-dawn,
when I lie just on this side of sleep, sometimes

not always, my hand takes the shape as if it is
holding you from the back,

and the fingers still hold the gossamer air
of the bedroom as if they touched your cheeks,

as if the small slant of your nose was there,
the graze of the stubble, the lemonness of hair,
the soft drip of your ear,

as if rememberance was a game
played by fingers on gossamer fields,

and, in those nights, I didn't need
memory's ability to see, I touched, and without
saying it to you, meant, like in
those nights, "nice-looking",

and saying it held off dawn, it held off the claim
of the next day, it held off who-told-you-to-go,
why-did-you-have-to-go, it held off
where-are-you-now...

???????? ???? ??? ????? - Nazim Hikmet

tr. from Nazim Hikmet's 'Thinking of you'

???????? ???? ??? ?????
    ???? ?????? ???? ??, ???? ?????? ???? ??,
???? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ?????? ????
    ???? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ???

?? ?? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??
    ??? ?? ?? ???? ???? ????? ?????
??? ???? ????? ???

Nazim Hikmet

 

??? ??? ?? ??

???? ????-???? ????? ??
??? ??? ???

Aligarh

Dr. Siras,
In those nights,
you must have felt loneliness like a drip.

The walls of your room
would�ve been held apart only by a faint song,

and memory must have sat by you all night
combing the hours.

In your Marathi poem, Dr. Siras, the one about the �beloved moon,�
the one in which you somehow eke dawn from the dark sky,
I read it last night on the terrace,
it held me, it held my hands,
it let grass grow under my feet.

In this house that I have lived in for three years in Delhi, Dr. Siras,
the windows open onto a Palash tree.

I was 27 when I had rented it,
and at 27, the landlord had not spent too much time on the word �bachelor�
he had only asked if I had �too many parties�,
I didn�t, and I had got the house.

But next time, Dr. Siras, when I will try and look for a place in this city,
I will be older and they will pause at "but marriage?"
and I will try to eke out respect from a right surname,
from saying �Teacher�
from telling my birth-place,
and will try and hide my feeling small under my feet.

What had you said, Dr. Siras,
when you looked for that house in Durga Wadi?
What had you said for the neighbourhood, �Teacher�, �Professor�,
�Poet�?

What gives us this respect, Dr. Siras, this contract with water?

In those nights,
weighing this word in your hands,
you must have felt weak, like the sun at dusk,
you must have closed the window to keep out the evening,
you must have looked back, and hung the song in the air
between refusal and letting go.


(thanks to Apurva M Asrani and Ishani Banerjee)

For someone who'll read this

500 years from now

How are you?
I am sure a lot has changed

between my time and yours,
but we're not very different,

you have only one thing on me -
hindsight.

I have all these questions for you:
Do cars fly now?

Is Mumbai still standing by the sea?
How do you folks manage without ozone?

Have the aliens come yet?
Who from my century is still remembered?

How long did India and Pakistan last?
When did Kashmir become free?

It must be surprising for you
looking at our time,

our things must seem so strange to you,
our wars so little,

our toilets for 'men' and 'women'
must make you laugh

our cutting down of trees
would be listed in your 'Early Causes'

our poetry in which the moon is still
a thing far away

must make you wonder, both for that moon
and for the poetry.

You must be baffled,
that we couldn't even imagine

the things you now take for granted.
But let that be,

would you do me a favour,
for 'old time's sake'?

Would you go to the Humayun's Tomb
in what used to be Delhi

and just as you're climbing the front staircase,
near the fourth rung, I have cut into

the stone wall to your left -
'Akhil loves Rohit'

Will you go and see it?
Just that, go see it.

When Farida Khanum

sings now,

she does not hide the age
in her voice,

instead
she wraps it in paisleys,
and for a moment
holds it in both of her hands,

before
she drowns it in our sky.

When she sings now,
she knows

that at the end of that note
when her voice breaks
like a wishbone,

he will stay.

Tonight

You're still glued to the bus-stop seat,
I pull you off it, "91 is here."

On Gray's Inn Road,
you again call the houses "so miniature,"
holding them between your finger and thumb.

On the double-decker,
you're still dozing off on the back seat,
asking me to wake you up when we get there.

As we get out, I'm still telling you to
"wrap yourself well, it's always colder
near the river."

As we walk below the Waterloo Bridge
and you turn to look at me, I am still
one-part longing, one-part fear,

wishing, tonight, that you were here.


(thanks to Daniel Titz and Dorian Lebh)

December Poets

To melt the winter sun, partially,
  and hold it in a glass,
    Agha Shahid Ali,

to love, count to ten,
  then at last
    to grieve,
      Auden,

then, cussedly, leave
  to tread on something
    firmer,
      Rene Sharanya Verma,

to lose, again,
  reach that place, unknown,
    darker,
      Dorothy Parker.

When I die

bury me
only in your eyes.

All those years we dated,

it remained 'complicated,'
so what I don't get is this -
why do I remember them as 'bliss'.

Both of them liked being out on Delhi roads

at dawn.

As they reached the DND flyover from Sarai Kale Khan
they could see a red sun over Okhla,

and as they went down towards Ashram, she said -
if only this Yamuna had a little life in it, no?

He got a little bothered
at this sudden, pretentious love for nature -

I have come all the way from Yamuna Vihar,
the petrol's almost gone,
and you're thinking of the river.

How many cities
will we move in this one city

to look for a place.


Tr. from Ravish Kumar's ?????? ?

Ravish Kumar

 

To escape the rain

tr. from Ravish Kumar's ?????? ??

To escape the rain,
he parked the scooter
under the Moolchand flyover.

They were so lost in each other
they didn't even notice
all the other scooters
waiting around them
for the rain to end.

For no reason at all,
he kept on trying
to become her umbrella,

and she felt good
under an umbrella she didn't need
below a flyover.

All the people around them
stared as if they were a
leftover cloud.

Ravish Kumar

 

Come

tr. from Ashok Vajpeyi's '??'

Come,
like darkness comes near darkness,
like water runs into water,
like light dissolves in light,

come, wear me,
like a tree wears the bark,
like a mud-path wears the grass,

take me,
like the darkness takes the roots,
like water takes the moon,
like the infinite takes time.

A holiday from time

It makes me remember
all the times we�ve been together
absolutely alone in some suspended hour
a holiday from Time
prowling about in those quiet places
alienated from past and future
where there is no sound save listening
and vision is an anesthetic�

When I see how handsome you are
my stomach will fall
with many unpleasant emotions
like a cake with too many raisins
and I will want to shut you up in a closet
like a dress too beautiful to wear.



A letter from Zelda Fitzgerald to her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1931. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

In Delhi, last winter,

we needed a photograph
for the poster of your talk,
so you suggested -

"Take any from my FB album
in which I am wearing enough clothes
and not making a face,"

which left my choice, from among hundreds,
to about two.

Finally, we chose you in purple,
smiling, and sitting against a wall
in what looks like JNU,

you are wearing a silver hoop in your ear

and after looking at this photograph many times over,
I know why your name meant 'loved,'
I know why this memory is silver, I know
why this memory will now always be silver.

("Kaush, pack your best clothes,
Thanga would have hated if any of us
are badly dressed for the funeral.")

Thanga, I have two winters,
and terrace nights, and songs with you,
I have a midnight dance with you,
and because you thought we 'Indian fuckers'
were 'too dramatic,' I will, for your sake,
keep safe in my hands, all the evenings
that won't let you go.


(for Priya Thangarajah)

?? ??? ?? ??? ?? ???

?? ??? ?? ??? ?? ???
?? ?? ??? ??? ?? ???
??
????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??

?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???
???? ?? ??, ??? ?? ??? 
??? ????
????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??


(????? ?? ???)

When love goes cold

She was going out with him,
she was supposed to love him,
but she left him in the fridge
and let the council deal with the body.



Overheard in the street in a small city in southern England, 7 October 2015. Submitted by Mark Totterdell.

White truth

tr. from Munawwar Rana's 'Safed Sach'

His
fingers
always tell
the truth -- he
trusts them, shows
them off, every once in
a while, as we talk, he kisses
them lightly, one day, not knowing
better, he kept his fingers on my lips,
now they've started lying ever so slightly.


[After Munawwar Rana's return of the Sahitya Akademi award, Oct '15]

A Language of Forgetting

tr. from Rajesh Joshi's '????? ?? ????'

A river brushed against me
in the language of water,

and suddenly, in the language
of flight, the birds
moved below the clouds,

on trees written in a hieroglyphic script,
leaves stirred together, and in their movement
was the language of rustling -

it felt as if you are somewhere close,
drawing near in the language of the body

and whispering a language of forgetting
to those you could not.